


Per Terram Per Mare

by crocs



Series: Watermark [2]
Category: Aquaman (2018)
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Post-Movie: Aquaman (2018)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 07:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17483588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocs/pseuds/crocs
Summary: Tom and Atlanna attempt to host a family dinner, with varying degrees of success. (Post-Movie. Tom/Atlanna. Set sometime afterTerra Firma.)





	Per Terram Per Mare

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

The call comes in during the early morning.

Tom groans himself awake as the familiar voice of Bobby Darin washes over him from the tinny speaker to his side. The bedroom is painted hues of pink and red from the sky outside. He blinks and tries to move his arm to receive the call, but it's curled around a weight that's pinning part of it down. It shifts and turns further into his body, curling into his side. Tom tilts his head downward and smiles.

Wrapping the loose hair that's fallen in front of her face behind her ear, he takes in the sleeping form of his wife. Atlanna's buried herself in a swathe of blankets and duvet covers, each one hers and each one having gone unused for nigh on thirty years. Tom's not one for throw blankets or anything other than a cotton sheet, but he's not going to deny her the warmth. He strokes Atlanna's arm with the hand connected to his pinned one and picks up the phone with the other.

"Hello?" Tom asks, quietly. Atlanna's breathing flutters as he shifts to sit up straight.

Even from down the line, he recognises his son's smile in his greeting. _"Dad, hey. Just thought I’d check in. How's… everything?"_

He glances back down at her, grins. "Same old, same old," he replies, brow furrowing slightly. Tom shifts the receiver to the crook of his neck and picks up the photo of himself and Arthur together during a field trip, considering it. "Though you're not exactly the kind of person to call and check in, son. What's up?"

Arthur guffaws. _"Aw, you're hurting my feelings,"_ he says, sounding completely unaffected. _"Now that you've mentioned it, though, I do have something to ask you. Would you mind setting a few extra places for dinner on Saturday? Mera really wants to meet you, and, uh_ …"

Tom waits, eyebrow raised.

" _…Well, I'm kind of babysitting Orm at the moment. Ow!"_ Arthur pulls the phone away from his ear, says something to a ticked-off female voice and huffs. _"Sorry about that. The correct term is advising on the status of Atlantis's highest profile political prisoner, currently on house arrest. Redheads,"_ he offers as an apology.

Tom decides not to ask. "We'd be more than happy to," he assures him. Atlanna stirs and blinks at him questioningly. He squeezes her arm to reassure her and slides back down so they're face-to-face. She presses her forehead to his and he closes his eyes. "…Arthur?"

 _"Still here, Dad,"_ his son says. _"Thank you so much. Love you."_ He hangs up, harried for some reason.

"Love you too," Tom says to the dead air, and blindly puts the phone back onto the bedside table. Atlanna draws back from her spot and he opens his eyes. "That was Arthur."

"I gathered." She drapes the blankets that have fallen off in the night over them both, drawing him close. He tucks himself under her chin and she laughs, hand resting on his neck. "What about?"

"Wanted to ask about Saturday dinner. Apparently, we're gonna have a few more guests. Mera," Tom states, "and your son, Orm. If you want," he adds. Sometimes having worlds colliding is a touchy thing. Tom knows this.

Atlanna's eyes light up, and immediately Tom thinks of how bright sand shines on the shore, freshly brushed over by the sea spray. "I'm already looking forward to it. Family dinner," she says, almost in wonder. Her fingertips brush over his jawline. He looks up at her like a devotee to a goddess and she smiles down at him like she is one. "Fish?"

Drawing herself up, Tom laughs and kisses her on the cheek as if to say — _what else?_.

 

* * *

 

Saturday arrives like any other day does. Low tide starts the morning, so Tom works on repairs to the lighthouse. The infrastructure took a battering during the storm, almost as if someone were targeting it directly. Luckily, though, it's on high ground, so not a whole lot of damage has been done once Tom's assessed exactly what has happened. It's a job for a professional. He resolves to call one of his neighbours — a builder — soon to talk prices.

For now, Tom decides, it'll do. The light still works, and that's the most important bit.

He heads down to the market at noon. Fresh fruit, vegetables and fish line the stalls from sea to shining sea. Tom picks up some haddock for the meal and then some oranges for Atlanna, aiming to haggle for the best price. The seller at the fruit stall he goes to waves off all his offers anyway. He says that there could only be one reason for him to be buying oranges — seeing as though Tom himself doesn't particularly like them — and claps him on the shoulder, telling him to give his best wishes to Atlanna — seeing as though she'd craved them during her pregnancy.

Tom grins and resolves to pass on the message.

The evening comes early, and soon Tom finds himself stood next to his wife on the battered pier, waiting on his son and his guests. The moon shines down on the ocean. Suddenly, he's reminded of that night all those years ago; reminded of finding the love of his life sprawled out on the rocks. He kisses her temple in the moonlight. Atlanna's wearing his coat better than he ever could. It's cold out.

A loud splash echoes from beyond the pier and Arthur launches himself onto the end, three others following him. Tom furrows his brow as he recalculates how big the portions need to be. Each of them are wearing scaled armour, just like Atlanna had worn.

"Mom, Dad," Arthur waves. He gestures to the woman next to him. "You've met Mera."

Tom shakes his head as he moves to take her outstretched hand. "Thank you for saving me. For saving Atlanna. And," he grins, "from what I understand, Arthur's ass most of the time."

"There's no need," Mera says as his son protests. She looks secretly pleased. "My queen," she bows.

Atlanna nods regally. "Well met, Princess," she replies, then, unregally, hugs her. "It's good to see you again." She looks to Arthur and hugs him, too, tighter. "Arthur."

As Arthur speaks in a low tone to his mother, Tom moves toward the two he doesn't know. One of them is dressed head-to-toe in battle gear, making him rather uncomfortably think of the day Atlanna left. The other, blond, is staring at him with as much ferocity as he can muster. Tom would fear for his life if he didn't have some particularly large cuffs around both wrists.

"Orm?" Tom asks. The blond man huffs in response and looks past him at Atlanna, who unattaches herself from Arthur and moves toward him.

"Mother," he greets, voice a strangled neutral. Atlanna's face drops ever-so-slightly before she pieces a mask back together from her other feelings and hugs him, Orm's shackles pushing into her dress. Tom watches as they break apart, Orm's eyes as hard as crab shell. Atlanna stares down at the glowing cuffs and shoots a glare at the person Tom assumes is his guard.

"Release him," she says, voice dripping like venom.

The guard looks sideways at Mera and Arthur. Tension crackles, rife in the air, and then Arthur nods. "Listen to the queen."

Roughly, the guard grabs Orm's shackles by the side and squeezes hard. A high-pitched noise wails from where their hands are crossed and stops just as quickly, the lock coming undone. Satisfied, the guard nods at Arthur and Mera before disappearing back into the depths of the sea. Orm flexes his hands and resumes his unrepentant staring at Tom.

Arthur clears his throat. Tom looks at him.

"We bought a change of clothes?" Arthur lifts up a dry cleaning bag uncertainly. Shaking his head, Tom turns towards the house.

 

* * *

 

Once their guests have changed, Atlanna assigns roles to everyone in the kitchen. Arthur — his son could probably burn toast just by _looking_ at a piece of bread for too long — is entrusted with setting the table; Mera is given a knife to cut the vegetables with; Tom is in charge of watching the grill; Orm is standing in the corner of the room and staring at them all. Technically, he's supposed to be doing drinks, but Tom saw him take one look at the tap connected (by many, many pipes) to the ocean and was instantly reminded of how Orm had thrown all of the surface world's waste back over and took over the duties himself.

It's odd, Tom thinks, that seeing someone in a button-up shirt instantly humanises them. Both of the young men in the room are dressed in them, Mera in a simple dress. It suggests effort — buttons, Arthur has complained on the phone multiple times, seem to be a surface world invention — and respect. Dressing to impress. For Orm, Tom knows that it's not towards his half-brother's father.

He kisses Atlanna on the cheek as he moves away with the glasses. Orm glowers harder.

All too soon, dinner is ready. Tom is shooed to the seat next to his wife, who takes her place at the head. Arthur tucks Mera's chair in and sits opposite his mother. Orm takes the seat opposite Tom. He grabs the knife first, twirls it around in his hand before picking up the fork with the other. The silence deafens. It echoes around the table, bouncing off of the walls. The paint surrounding them is patchwork. Plaster from when the lighthouse was built pokes out from underneath the repairs from Atlanna's battle in a rougher pattern.

Arthur grunts. "This is fantastic," he says. There's a strip of fish still dangling on his fork from where he's speared it. "From the market?" Tom frowns at the bite mark on the fish and goes to comment, but Atlanna beats him to it.

"Arthur, do cut your food before you eat it," his wife reprimands, and Orm smirks.

Then he yelps. Orm drops his knife, hand shooting down to his knee. "Did you just _kick_ me under the table?" he asks, voice incredulous.

Clearly unrepentant, Mera shrugs. She flips her long red hair — _Ariel_ , Tom nearly laughs — before blinking at Orm. "What, are you saying it wasn't deserved?" Not waiting for him to answer her question, she picks up her glass of water. "Eat your food and close your mouth."

Orm rolls his eyes. "I —"

"You're behaving like a teenager," Mera snaps, and Tom sets down his cutlery, splays his hands out on the table.

"You _both_ are," he interjects. They turn to him in chorus, expressions nearly identical; they're completely caught off guard.

"I get that for you two, having a meal on the surface world is kinda weird, but that doesn't mean you need to — I don't know, squabble with each other. Mera," Tom turns to her, "from what Arthur's told me, I know for a fact you're the one with the level head here. And Orm —" he twists, meets those stone cold blue eyes dead centre — "you were able to persuade the other Ocean Kingdoms to join your cause. You can certainly survive dinner without having an argument."

Mera looks slightly cowed, but tilts her head in acknowledgment. Orm holds Tom's look easily, but he doesn't miss the way the Atlantean's fist has curled ever-so-slightly tighter around the grip of his knife.

"Besides," Tom adds, lightly, "it's a sad state of affairs when _Arthur_ is the best behaved out of you lot."

Arthur snorts in amusement and does a fake toast with his glass across the table, before downing it. "I have a reputation to uphold, dad," he grins, and Tom shakes his head in good humour. He breaks away from Orm's calculating stare, picks up his fork and pokes at a stubborn carrot. Atlanna bites her bottom lip and fills the silence with anecdotes about her years in Atlantis and the surface world.

Tom doesn't miss the moment that Orm's stare softens, but he doesn't comment on it either.

 

* * *

 

Fingers curled around a porcelain mug, Tom leans up against the new car's grill and cranes his neck up at the stars above him. Winter in Amnesty Bay is biting and unforgiving. The tide spits at the shore like a machine gun, ocean spray flung everywhere. The only heat around him comes from the tea in his hands and belly and the faraway twinkles in the night sky.

Atlanna has retired to bed; Mera and Arthur are settling in to the newly-redecorated office-come-guest room; Orm is on a pull-out mattress next to the television. Briefly, Tom wonders whether or not they have televisions in Atlantis. He snorts. Picturing Vulko watching reruns of Real Housewives is way too funny of a thought for what it is.

Well, if there were ever a spin-off set in Atlantis, Tom knows exactly who would be on it.

"Enjoying being alone?"

 _Speak of the devil._ Tom raises his eyebrows at Orm holding a torch. "I could ask you the same thing. It's pretty late. Why aren't you asleep? I assumed you wanted to get in a few good hours before your trip back tomorrow."

Shaking his head, Orm positions himself so he's next to him but not-quite-leaning on the car like he is. "Atlanteans don't need the same amount of sleep surface-dwellers do," he answers, then falters a tiny bit. "And, anyway… I was thinking. And I couldn't stop."

"Dangerous," Tom comments, and sips. He gestures for him to continue.

Orm exhales. "You're in love with my mother," he states. Tom nods. "And, despite the judgements Atlantis has made about the surface-world, she's fallen in love with you too. Much more than she ever did with my father, if she ever did. That's apparent." He looks away from Tom to the dirt beneath them. He clicks the torch off, plunging them into darkness before Tom's eyes adjust to the dim flickering of the outside lights.

"If you wanted to marry her again…" Orm shivers as a ruthless wind skates by. "…I would give my permission."

Tom breathes in as a wave crashes against the cliff. Counts to ten, then looks at Orm. "I don't require your permission," he says, and raises his hand to stop the onslaught of cutting remarks that Orm is clearly wanting to say. "I have known your mother — loved your mother — longer than you have been alive." He tilts his head. "But."

"But?"

"But I’m glad to have it anyway, son."

Tom can pinpoint exactly when Orm changes from unsure to sure. "I'm not your son," he reminds him, but it's less biting than it would've been a couple of minutes beforehand.

There's a sentence somewhere in there that's gone unsaid, but Tom gets the gist despite the silence. "You're Atlanna's," he replies heavily. Orm nods. Tom clears his throat, tries to lighten his tone. "…And, uh, it really shows. You know what the first thing she did over here was?"

Orm's brows furrow. "She's never had the chance to tell me."

"Attacked me," Tom smiles. "Your mom's gotta helluva right hook."

"…Do you have any other stories?"

 _Not nearly enough,_ he wants to say, but there's something in the kid's eyes that make him reconsider. "Lots," Tom assures him, and clinks his mug against Orm's torch in solidarity. "This one time, we had to go to this florist up in Smallville — oh, this was around five years before your brother was born — apparently roses look a lot like a delicacy you guys have…"

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Title from the phrase 'per terram per mare', meaning _by land, by sea_. I really wanted to write something about Tom and Orm's relationship, seeing as though they never actually met in the movie. Thoughts?


End file.
